You know what’s funny about getting older? The things you swore you’d never say to your kids start making a lot more sense. “Because I said so” suddenly feels like a perfectly reasonable response when you’re exhausted after a long day at work.
But here’s the thing I’ve learned after raising two boys and watching countless friends do the same: What we thought was harmless back then? Some of it really messed our kids up.
I spent over thirty years in HR, helping people work through their problems. You’d be amazed how often those problems traced back to something their parents did or said decades earlier. And now that my own sons are adults, I’m seeing the same patterns in our family.
The truth is, our generation of parents thought we were doing fine. We weren’t beating our kids like some of our parents did. We provided for them. We showed up to most of their games.
But somewhere along the way, we normalized behaviors that left lasting marks. And many of our adult children are still unpacking that damage in therapy sessions we never thought they’d need.
1) Dismissing their feelings with “you’re too sensitive”
How many times did we say this? When our kids cried over something we thought was trivial, when they got upset about a friend’s comment, when they worried about things that seemed silly to us.
I remember my younger son coming home devastated because his best friend didn’t invite him to a sleepover. My response? “Oh, come on, you’re being too sensitive. Boys don’t get worked up over stuff like that.”
What I didn’t realize was that I was teaching him his feelings didn’t matter. That having emotions was somehow wrong or weak. Is it any wonder so many men from his generation struggle to express themselves now?
The message we sent was clear: Your emotional experience isn’t valid unless we agree with it. And that’s a terrible thing to teach a child.
2) The silent treatment as punishment
This was a big one in our house. When the kids messed up, sometimes I’d just stop talking to them for hours or even days. Not yelling, not lecturing, just… silence. Cold shoulder. Acting like they didn’t exist.
I thought I was being the bigger person by not losing my temper. After all, my dad used to rage and throw things. I was doing better, right?
Wrong. That silence was devastating. Kids need connection, especially when they’ve made mistakes. By withdrawing, we taught them that love was conditional. That making mistakes meant losing relationships. No wonder anxiety runs so high in their generation.
3) Comparing them to siblings or other kids
- “Why can’t you be more like your brother?”
- “The Johnson kids never give their parents this much trouble.”
- “When I was your age, I’d never dream of talking back.”
We thought comparison would motivate them. Give them something to aspire to. Instead, we created a generation of people who constantly feel like they’re not measuring up. Who look at social media and feel worthless because everyone else seems to be doing better.
My older son recently told me he still hears my voice in his head comparing him to his younger brother who was naturally better at sports. Twenty-five years later, and he’s still fighting that feeling of not being good enough. That hit me hard.
4) Making them responsible for our emotions
- “You’re giving me a headache.”
- “You’re going to be the death of me.”
- “Look what you’re doing to your mother.”
We made our kids feel responsible for our happiness, our stress, our wellbeing.
When work was overwhelming and the teenagers were being teenagers, I’d come home and make it clear that their behavior was making my life harder. As if a fourteen-year-old should be managing his father’s emotional state.
During that rough patch in my late forties, when my wife and I were barely talking and work was crushing me, I put so much of that weight on my boys. They walked on eggshells, trying not to set off dad’s bad mood.
They became anxiety-ridden people-pleasers because they learned early that keeping others happy meant keeping themselves safe.
5) Never admitting when we were wrong
Parents had to be right. Always. Admitting mistakes would undermine our authority, or so we believed.
If we overreacted, we’d double down instead of apologizing. If we were wrong about something, we’d find a way to make it the kid’s fault anyway. “Well, if you hadn’t done X, I wouldn’t have said Y.”
This taught our kids that being wrong was shameful. That admitting mistakes was weakness. They grew up unable to take accountability or, worse, taking accountability for everything, even things that weren’t their fault.
It wasn’t until recently that I started apologizing to my adult sons for specific things I got wrong. You should see how their faces change when I say, “I was wrong about that, and I’m sorry.” Doors open that staying defensive kept locked for decades.
6) Minimizing their problems
- “You think you have problems? Wait until you have a mortgage and kids.”
- “That’s nothing compared to real problems.”
- “You don’t know how good you have it.”
Every concern they brought to us got measured against adult problems and found lacking. But here’s what we missed: Their problems were real to them.
A fight with a best friend, a bad grade, not making the team – these were the biggest challenges they’d faced in their lives so far.
By constantly minimizing their struggles, we taught them not to trust their own experiences. To doubt their own judgment about what matters. Is it surprising they now struggle with decision-making and self-trust?
7) Pulling away right when they needed us most
This one’s personal for me. I was a hands-on dad when my boys were young. Building forts, coaching Little League, the whole thing.
But when they hit their teenage years and work got more demanding, I pulled back. Right when they were navigating the hardest parts of growing up, dad was at the office until eight every night.
I told myself teenagers wanted space anyway. That they didn’t need me hovering. But what they needed was consistent presence, even if they acted like they didn’t. They needed to know that no matter how complicated life got, dad was still there.
The timing couldn’t have been worse, and I deeply regret it. Those were the years they were forming their ideas about relationships, about themselves, about what matters in life.
And I was too buried in spreadsheets and meetings to guide them through it.
Closing thoughts
If you’re reading this and recognizing yourself, join the club. We did the best we could with what we knew then. But that doesn’t mean we can’t acknowledge the impact of our choices now.
Our kids aren’t in therapy because they’re weak or oversensitive. They’re in therapy because we taught them some pretty messed up things about emotions, relationships, and self-worth. The least we can do is own that.
So here’s my question for you: What would happen if you called your adult child today and apologized for one specific thing you got wrong?
